As he listened to the announcement over the loudspeaker, Chen Mochuan couldn't help marveling at Principal Wang's astonishing efficiency.
Less than half an hour had passed since he left the office, yet not only had his certificate already been put up on the wall, but an announcement to the entire school had also been arranged.
Lunch break wasn't quite over yet. The broadcast had undoubtedly woken many students from their naps, and the news quickly spread to every corner of the campus.
In front of the honor wall on the first floor of the teaching building, the announcement had already drawn a crowd of students.
They gathered around the brand-new certificate, pointing at its contents and discussing it animatedly, their expressions varied.
"'Wisdom and courage, guarding the peace'... Isn't that a bit exaggerated?"
"Chen Mochuan? I know him. He's that student from the advanced class whose Blood-Qi Value was always low, right? He didn't even break three during the monthly exam. Could he really have handled a Ferocious Beast? There must be some inside story behind this honor, right?"
There were always a few people in the crowd who were jealous. Unable to resist, they made snide remarks and raised doubts.
Most students, however, were simple and upright. Seeing a fellow student receive an honor, many felt proud by association.
"It's stamped with the Municipal Public Security Bureau's official seal. How could it be fake?"
"City-level individual honors are reviewed very strictly. I heard someone once spotted a Ferocious Beast and reported it to the police, and all they got was some prize money and internal recognition. For Chen Mochuan to receive this honor, he must have played a crucial role!"
Lu Ren stood at the edge of the crowd with a gloomy expression. He took no part in the discussion, merely staring fixedly at the glaring red certificate on the honor wall as his face grew darker by the moment.
After losing their earlier challenge match, he had come to see Chen Mochuan as a thorn in his side. Every bit of recognition and every honor the other man received felt like another thorn driven into his heart.
"Hmph, he just got lucky... He's still the bottom-ranked student in the advanced class. Midterms are in half a month. Then we'll see who's got real ability, and he'll show his true colors."
Comforting himself with these thoughts, Lu Ren stopped looking at the honor wall that had put him in such a foul mood and turned to leave.
The advanced-class students noticed that Chen Mochuan, now the center of discussion among the teachers and students of No. 8 High School thanks to the commendation, didn't seem affected at all. He continued studying and training with his usual calm diligence, showing not the slightest trace of smugness or impatience.
Since Chen Mochuan himself showed no special reaction, the advanced-class students gradually stopped paying so much attention to the commendation.
Only the certificate for "Advanced Individual for Bravery" remained in the most prominent spot on the honor wall, silently proclaiming the honor. Anyone passing by still couldn't help taking a look.
After receiving a total of ten thousand yuan in prize money from the police station and the school, Chen Mochuan's bank balance exceeded eighteen thousand yuan. It was undoubtedly the largest sum he had been able to spend freely since arriving in this world.
His Blood Qi had grown significantly over the past half month, and two Blood Qi Supplements a day could no longer meet his increasing cultivation needs.
With money to spare, he naturally turned his attention to better resources for martial cultivation.
There were plenty of resources that could aid martial cultivation more effectively than Blood Qi Supplements. At his current stage, the best value for money came from Wuzheng Pharmaceutical's Wuzheng Blood Essence Agent.
The Blood Qi boost from one Wuzheng Blood Essence Agent was roughly equivalent to that of three or four Blood Qi Supplements, making it the better choice by far.
But reality quickly doused his hopes. Though the Wuzheng Blood Essence Agent offered relatively good value compared with similar products, its greater ease of absorption by the human body meant a box of ten vials cost as much as fifteen thousand yuan.
The more than eighteen thousand yuan Chen Mochuan had on hand was just enough to buy a single box.
After weighing his options, he decided to keep some money for emergencies and make his resources last. He had no choice but to settle for increasing his daily intake of ordinary Blood Qi Supplements to five every two days.
That way, he could still afford them and wouldn't have to worry about "running out of food" for the time being.
But after this experience, his desire for a steady source of income grew even stronger.
Helping the police force this time had been a complete fluke and carried considerable risk. It was certainly not something he could count on regularly.
As a student, the safest way he could think of to earn money was to improve his class ranking and thereby receive more generous martial cultivation subsidies and scholarships from the school.
If he could make it into the top ten in his grade, the school would reward him with other valuable martial resources in addition to the basic Blood Qi Supplements. They would be useful whether he kept them for his own cultivation or sold them for cash.
Of course, all of this depended on his own strength continuing to improve.
And so, in the days that followed, Chen Mochuan devoted himself even more fully to martial cultivation, continuing his regular routine of school, Mingxin Martial Arts Hall, and home.
It might have seemed dull to outsiders, but he could constantly sense every bit of his progress through the Golden Light Screen, and he never grew tired of it.
After taking the Boiling Blood Beast Jerky, Chen Mochuan's Blood Qi had surged by a substantial amount. His strength had increased greatly, but he had also become slightly less coordinated in controlling his body.
He spent some time practicing his punches and horse stance diligently, until he had regained perfect control over his enhanced strength.
In the days after the Ferocious Rat incident, he also kept a close eye on local news in Antu City, but found no follow-up reports about the Broken-Legged Ferocious Rat that had escaped.
With no solid information, he had no way of knowing whether the rat had been caught or whether the police station had deliberately suppressed the news to avoid causing panic among the residents.
Regardless, the matter no longer had anything to do with Chen Mochuan. During this time, he had stayed focused, steadily improving his martial cultivation.
As his strength improved, his ranking points on Heaven Martial Battle Net gradually climbed. At their highest, they reached 992, just one step away from ranking up.
Although he later suffered a string of losses and his score dropped, it had now stabilized at around 980.
At this score range, his opponents were almost all Fifth-Rank or even Sixth-Rank Martial Warriors, despite his own Blood-Qi level being that of a Fourth-Rank Martial Artist. The fights had become exceptionally difficult.
Even so, with his superb martial skills, he could hold his own against opponents with higher Blood Qi and maintain a win rate of around fifty percent.
It was easy to see that if he kept working hard, reaching the Bronze rank was only a matter of time.
Just as Chen Mochuan thought life would continue peacefully as before, a morning news broadcast on television the day before the midterm exams caught his attention.
"Next, we bring you an important warning issued by the city police."
The news anchor looked somewhat grave.
"Over the past half month, multiple cases of teenagers going missing have occurred in our city. After a preliminary investigation, the police have determined that the cases involved similar methods and may be connected."
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